This edition of ourTranslators’ Corner features English translations of three poems by the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince (1958–): “Unbeliever Poet,” “Breakfast,” and “Dissolution.” All three poems are drawn from Testamento Involuntario, a collection first published in 2012 that occupies a unique place within the author’s literary career.
Internationally recognized as a novelist, essayist, journalist, and editor, Héctor Abad Faciolince has explored throughout his work themes such as memory, loss, family ties, and Colombia’s sociopolitical violence. Testamento Involuntario, however, stands apart within his body of work: it is his only book of poetry, a collection of poems written over several decades and assembled from personal notebooks and recollections. The author himself has remarked that poetry represents for him a mode of expression distinct from prose, one guided more by instinct and musicality than by narrative logic.
This selection of poems offers a representative glimpse into this lesser-known facet of Abad Faciolince’s writing. Within them converge reflections on identity, the fleeting nature of everyday experience, skepticism toward certainty, and a sustained attention to processes of transformation and loss. The publication of these texts in English translation pays tribute to a singular dimension of Abad Faciolince’s work, whose intimate and contemplative poetic voice deepens our understanding of one of the most distinguished Latin American writers of his generation.
